A Far Rockaway man was arrested Tuesday morning and booked at the 100th Precinct in Rockaway Beach in connection to a fatal collision last June that left a 19-year-old woman dead in Rockaway Park.
Daniel Sails, 30, of Gipson Street in the Bayswater section of Far Rockaway, was charged with reckless driving nearly seven months after he crashed into a bus stop— killing a woman waiting for a bus—on Beach 108th Street at the intersection of Rockaway Beach Boulevard across the street from the Rockaway Hotel.
On the afternoon of Sunday, June 24, police from the 100th Precinct responded to 911 calls of a motor vehicle collision at the location and found Ava Conklin, of 10th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, lying on the sidewalk, with severe trauma to her torso. EMS responded and rushed her to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Conklin had just finished working a shift at the Rockaway Hotel and was waiting for the bus at around 2:17 p.m. when Sails, who was behind the wheel of a 2021 Hyundai Venue traveling westbound on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle that mounted the sidewalk and collided with three metal benches at the bus stop and the victim, the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad determined. Sails remained at the scene and was taken into custody for questioning and was later released.
He was re-arrested on Jan. 16 and charged with reckless driving after a months-long probe by the NYPD Highway District’s Investigation Squad.
